Okuno learns patience through her first season with UGA women's tennis

Sports Editor

Ayaka Okuno’s first match with the Georgia women’s tennis team came about four months after she arrived in Athens.

The freshman came in good enough to break into the top-six singles lineup, and she wasn’t sidelined with an injury.

But yet, she was still having to workout, condition and practice completely separately from the team.

The reason?

The NCAA hadn’t cleared her. A matter of paperwork, it was out of her hands.

“It was for sure one of the toughest things I’ve ever faced,” the Osaka, Japan native said. “I came in here ready to play. I wanted to play so bad from the beginning.”

So she was forced to watch her team in passing.

She had wrapped up high school and her junior tennis career early to jump into the Bulldogs’ lineup. And now the days were just dragging on, waiting for the phone call that she had been cleared to play.

Fifteen wins, two losses and five road trips happened without her.

“Every day it was just, ‘Hopefully it gets cleared,’” Okuno said. “It was a period of time where it was really tough and it was really hard, but once I got through it, it was even better.”

And then when her teammates were on a bus en route to play Missouri and Texas A&M at Columbia and College Station, respectively, Okuno’s phone rang.

Glada Horvat, Georgia’s senior associated athletic director for academics and eligibility, said the words Okuno had been waiting on for months.

“I was in my room, and the tears would not stop,” Okuno said. “It was the happiest feeling ever. And I called the girls up and some of them were crying too.”

Now playing at No. 5 singles, Okuno entered Georgia’s lineup on April 5 against LSU. She defeated Ebie Wilson 6-0, 6-0, no less, and has since compiled a 5-2 record.

“She was just excited to get the opportunity to play, so I think her first couple matches you could see how excited she was and she wanted to take advantage of every opportunity she got because she knew what it was like not to be able to play,” said Kate Fuller, who plays No. 4 singles.

And to start off her first NCAA tournament, Okuno provided the match clinch for fourth-seeded Georgia in the team’s first- and second-round matches against Winthrop and Arizona State, respectively.

Arizona State’s Hannah James took the first set before Okuno came back for the victory to send Georgia (23-3) to the tournament’s round of 16 in Urbana, Ill., to face Clemson.

“But now that she’s playing and clinching these matches, I just see her getting so much better each and every time that she’s out there on the court,” Georgia coach Jeff Wallace said. “I think we just saw that all in her last match, how well she ended up playing.”

Despite missing so many matches and waiting to finally take the court, Okuno said watching her teammates helped her learn some nuances of tennis at the college level. And she said the mental battle it put her through made her learn patience.

“We saw her struggle at times at practice with the fact that she wasn’t able to be out there with us [before she was cleared],” said Lauren Herring, who plays No. 1 singles. “I think it kind of makes this trip all the more exciting, and those two [clinch] moments that much more special.”

Blue, slanted courts

Manuel Diaz, the Georgia men’s tennis coach, said Monday the tennis courts at the University of Illinois are slightly more slanted than the courts at Dan Magill Tennis Complex.

And Lauren Herring, who is ranked sixth in singles, was a bit surprised when she found out.

“Are they now?” Herring said. “That’s the one thing I notice when I go out there. I seriously do. … It’s kind of one of my weird quirks is I do notice slants on courts and it’s a mental thing. … But you gotta go out there and play no matter what courts your on, no matter what conditions.”

Those same courts are blue, which is a change from Georgia’s green and faded red courts.

“We’ll get used to the way the courts look and how fast or slow that they play and I think it might be a little bit windy,” Fuller said. “So, we’ll just kind of get a feel for the courts we’ll be playing on.”

Outdoor Tigers

When the Bulldogs faced Clemson during the indoor season on Feb. 2, they notched a 5-2 win.

The 13th-seeded Tigers have strung together a 16-7 record, including first- and second-round wins over Eastern Kentucky and Vanderbilt, respectively.

“I know they’ve gained momentum,” Herring said. “They’ve had some good matches since then. But I think we’ve kind of figured out our identity as a team since then and I think we have confidence. Hopefully, we can come out here and play even better than we did last time against them.”